Trouble in Paradise , ITV1's latest reality game show, was a ratings disaster with an average of just 2.7 million (11.5%) last night.

Trouble in Paradise , ITV1's latest reality game show, was a ratings disaster with an average of just 2.7 million (11.5%) last night.

The new 7-part series which sees couples vie to win a farmhouse that they have to renovate together at best could only manage 3.2 million (13.8%) in the first five-minutes of the 60-minute show at 21.00.

ITV executives though will take some comfort as the show's audience was fairly stable throughout and ended on 2.7 million.

The low audience figures also hindered the start of The All Star Comedy Show at 22.00 which also failed to get off the ground with 3.1 million (15.5%).

It was the second day this week that the commercial broadcaster struggled in peaktime. On Tuesday (27 April) the channel secured a share of just 19% while yesterday the broadcaster only faired slightly better with 21.9%.

Even The Bill at 20.00, which normally can command strong figures, got a relatively weak 6.4 million (28.7%).

Trouble in Paradise suffered from the humiliation of being overtaken by the return of Channel 4's Dispatches strand. The 60-minute undercover documentary Third-Class Post at 21.00 which exposed misconduct and malpractice within the postal service collected 3.2 million (13.9%) and hit a peak of 3.5 million (15.4%) at 21.35.

BBC2 wasn't too far behind ITV1 with 2.4 million (10.7%) following the latest live coverage of the world snooker championship and a repeat of Abba's Biggest Secret: Revealed on Five got 2.1 million (9.3%).

Striding ahead of everyone else though was BBC1 as the penultimate episode of New Tricks at 21.00 got 7 million (30.2%).

C4 didn't fair so well at 20.00 though as the start of Fairy Godfathers appealed to 1.8 million (8%) for 60-minutes. It was level-pegging with Five's Abba's Greatest Hits in the same slot on 1.8 million (8%). Slightly ahead though was BBC2's airing of Cousins , which was first shown on BBC1, with 1.9 million (8.6%).

Peaktime shares for 29 April: BBC1 - 30.9%, ITV1 - 21.9%, BBC2 - 10.5%, C4 - 8.9%, Five - 6.8%.

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